No ordinary Joe

We’re being dripped on by rain in a studio hidden away on a north London industrial estate. The Hawaiian shirts belie the miserable, and frankly quite British, weather outside.

We were going to go to a nice cafe nearby, but it was closed, and the only alternative a greasy spoon packed with truck drivers and other workers from the estate. And while there’s nothing wrong with a good old British caf’, it doesn’t feel quite the right place for this chat. So Joe Dempsie and I are here, talking about Game of Thrones, the best of British culture, and his beloved Nottingham Forest…

“I always relate everything back to football because it’s what I understand,” laughs Joe Dempsie, the Nottingham actor who, as we speak, is preparing to appear on our screens in eight-part espionage thriller, Dark State. “Forest have been trying to get into the premiere league for years and years, and every season the quest begins again. But I just know that if we did get promoted we’d get hammered every week and then relegated. So you have to remember in life that the journey is as joyful as the destination. Stop living in the hypothetical future and enjoy the moment.”